Tag Archives: building vocabulary/conceptual knowledge

Currency (n)

Because I work in an economics-and-finance-themed high school, I found it necessary to write this context clues worksheet on the noun currency. Perhaps it will have some utility in your classroom.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cusp (n)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun cusp that might be of use in you classroom. It’s a solid abstract noun that has a foot in the concrete world, which may make it suitable for teaching the difference between concrete and abstract nouns.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Marshall (n) and Marshal (vt/vi)

Here are five worksheets on the homophones marshall and marshal used, respectively, as a noun and a verb. The verb, particularly, strikes me as something high school students should know, particularly if teachers are assigning research papers and asking students to marshal evidence to support arguments.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Anachronism (n)

“A term used to distinguish anything out of its proper time. Shakespeare’s references to cannons in King John, a play which takes place before cannons came into use, to clocks in Julius Caesar, and to billiards in Antony and Cleopatra, are examples of anachronisms. In literature, anachronisms are sometimes used deliberately as comic devices to emphasized universal timelessness.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Beowulf

As we count down the days to the beginning of the school year, it may be a good time, particularly if you’re teaching English in the upper grades, to post this short reading on Beowulf and this reading comprehension worksheet that attends it.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Word Root Exercise: Morph/o

Here is a worksheet on the Greek root morph/o, which means form. It can also, naturally, means shape. As you will see, this is a very productive root in English, and is at the base of quite a few big abstract nouns.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Covenant (n)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun covenant, for which I can think of a variety of uses. I wrote it to help students understand it as an agreement, specifically the restrictive or racial covenants that racism wears in real estate transactions.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Postcolonialism

So today seems like an appropriate time to post this reading on postcolonialism along with the comprehension worksheet that accompanies it. This reading deals with postcolonial literary movements and personalities, so if you’re reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, or other postcolonial literature, this might be a useful adjunct.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Deteriorate (vt/vi)

It seems to me that this context clues worksheet for the verb deteriorate, which is used both transitively and intransitively, would be of some use in just about any classroom, contingent on the students it contains.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cosmology (n)

Here, to accompany the quote below it, is a context clues worksheet on the noun cosmology. If memory serves, I wrote this to use with a lesson on Galileo. But it could serve a number of purposes.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.